This Kickstarter book had me at “Sherlock Holmes meets Cthulhu”. While I haven’t read the Solar Pons stories or been able to find August Derleth in the library, which means I went into this collection unfamiliar with the main characters, I still enjoyed this short story collection very much.

A little bit of backstory: August Derleth was a friend of HP Lovecraft who wrote some story based on notes left by Lovecraft after his demise, and he was an admirer of Sherlock Holmes. He created his detective. Solar Pons, after he was did not get permission to write Sherlock Holmes stories, which means that his detective bears a great resemblance to Sherlock himself.

In this collection of nine stories, various authors have contributed tales where the detective Solar Pons investigate mysteries that may or may not have something to do with the Great Old Ones. I enjoyed all the stories, and since nine isn’t a huge number, I thought I’d talk a bit about each in this review:

1. The Rondure of Cthulhu: A renowned business man is found dead – perhaps torn by a savage beast? Solar Pons and Dr Parker investigate and find out about the existence of an artefact that may or may not be related to this murder. This was a fun case and I enjoyed the twist at the end.
2. The Meandering Mathematician: Pons and Parker investigate the disappearance of a mathematical student who may or may not have been studying arcane maths. I found this one to be even creepier than the first story and enjoyed it even more – I mean, not to spoil the story but there are talking rats!
3. A Matter of Blood: Cthulhu meets Dracula! Pons and Parker are called to investigate the disappearance of Mina and Jonathan Harker’s son. I loved the mashup between Dracula and Cthulhu, but I’m a bit disappointed that the story wasn’t more… supernatural, for lack of a better word. That said, it’s still a fun mystery.
4. To Everything There Is A Season: Can you revive the dead? This intriguing story references both the Cthulhu mythos and what happens at Holme’s Reichenbach Waterfalls, all in the world of Solar Pons, of course. As you can imagine, I loved catching all these homages to the two worlds that influenced the story.
5. The Lancastrian and the Lake Monster: Originally written as a Sherlock Holmes story, this has Parker seeing a mythical beast while investigating a murder at the behest of a friend. While this was fun, I really wished it had a bit more of the spooky stuff in it (can you see a pattern appearing in my comments?)
6. The Adventure of the Book and the Gate: This one has it all – human cruelty and supernatural forces. It’s a pretty chilling one and there are some scenes that may be harder to stomach.
7. Solar Pons and the Testament in Ice: This has zombies!! Apart from that, it didn’t make too much of an impression on me. It wasn’t bad, but I enjoyed some of the other stories more.
8. The Adventure of the Drowned Genealogist: I’m not going to lie, this story about the mysterious death of a young lady had me confused – I had to reread the whole story to understand it. It had a twist that was a bit sudden for me.
9. The Man with the Writhing Skin: A woman dedicated to the prevention of the rise of the Old Ones comes to Solar Pons with a request for help: someone strange is following her. This one may be my favourite of the collection because the twist was surprising but believable and it was gruesome but not too much.

I found all the stories in this collection to be well-written and enjoyable. You definitely don’t need to be familiar with Solar Pons to enjoy this as long as you like Holmes and Cthulhu, but I’m guessing that you’ll enjoy the book more if you do. Each writer seem to treat the Cthulhu aspect a bit differently; in some cases, the Great Old Ones exist while in other cases, not so much, which makes each case unique and enjoyable. I also enjoyed all the meta references to August Derleth (since the stories are supposed to be by Dr Parker) and to Sherlock Holmes as the predecessor of Solar Pons.

Overall, this was a fun anthology of stories and I’d definitely recommend this to people who like their mysteries with a hint (or more) of supernatural danger.